Chapter 9 – An Unexpected Meeting

Dean watched as the Doc ran towards the Impala, the passenger door was wide open and she slid in easily.

"I'm not sure this is such a good idea Doc. Maybe we should have taken her to the hospital?"

Hannah looked across at Dean and she could see the concern for the little girl written plainly on his face.

"Trust me" she said gently "This is for the best. Any moment now her mother will wake up and start looking for her, the first place she'll look is where I left her in the barn."

"And you're sure she won't remember us?" Dean asked watching the house dubiously

"No she'll remember us alright. Unfortunately I can't take that away from her. But I have dulled it, made if fuzzy like a dream. If she tells anyone, they'll probably just say it was a nightmare."

Dean drew air in through his teeth, still not feeling particularly good about this plan.

"It just doesn't feel right. That girl survived something in there. She's entitled to those memories, she has a justifiable fear and instead someone is just going to dismiss it as a nightmare."

A light came on in the house and a second was soon to follow.

"Well it's too late now, her mother is already looking for her." said Hannah with a tinge of regret in her voice. She felt Dean's words, thought they had merit, but there was no way that they could ever explain what had happened to that little girl to her parents and they both knew it.

Dean pulled the Impala onto the road and headed back towards the motel. He really wanted to go and see Sam, but he was practical enough to realise that they both looked like hell and they could both use some sleep.

While Hannah had been dropping the sleeping child into her parent's barn, Dean had thought a lot about her. About the power that she wielded, about the memories that he had seen, all of it buzzed around in his head like and angry nest of hornets.

"Doc, I got to tell you, what you did back there. That is some pretty scary shit." he said keeping his eyes fixed on the road.

"I was very lucky that everything that I intended worked they way it was supposed to. That doesn't happen to me often." she said in a quiet tone.

"That brain thing, where you put an idea into some ones head…" Dean let the words slip away as the implications of having a talent like that struck him.

"It doesn't work on everybody." she explained letting her head rest on the back of the seat.

"Even so Doc" argued Dean "that's scary."

Hannah looked at him as he drove his body tense and his eye fixed firmly ahead.

"Does it frighten you when a hypnotist makes people think they are chickens?"

Dean snorted, chancing a glance sideways at her "That's different Doc and you know it."

"No it isn't" retorted Hannah "All I'm doing is putting an idea in their subconscious mind. It is no different than a therapist who uses post hypnotic suggestion to get you to quit smoking or stop bitting your nails."

Hannah studied Dean as she spoke, he didn't acknowledge her words, but by the way he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, she knew there was something more to his concern.

"Why do I get the feeling that there is more to this than your saying?"

Dean sighed heavily, the images that he still had floating about his brain of Hannah killing her entire family had been troubling him since the danger to them had died. He had wanted to ask her about it, but his memory of the pain and guilt had made him loathed to bring it up.

"Doc" he started letting a long pause fall between his sentences while he gathered his thoughts "Something happened back in the woods when you pulled me from the water. I don't know what it was but I saw some of you memories."

Hannah lifted her head off the seat and turned her full attention toward Dean. He felt the impact of her scrutiny like a physical blow.

"What kind of memories?" she questioned her voice turning stony.

"I saw your family Doc." said Dean "I saw how they died."

If it was possible, Hannah's face grew paler, her lips where pulled into a hard line across her face and her eyes narrowed, but she remained silent and perfectly still.

"Do you want to explain that to me?" prompted Dean, unnerved by her sudden stillness.

Hannah stared at him without even blinking. "Not particularly" she said and her voice was hard and cold, like she was speaking to an enemy not an ally.

Dean could feel the energy in the car all but crackle with tension and the hairs on the back of his arms rose as though he was being affected by static. He kept his eyes on the roads of Patterson, heading back to the motel. He had seen what the Doc was capable of and the last thing he wanted to do was pick a fight.

"Doc, I know it wasn't you that did it" Dean said trying to calm the situation with his voice "But it would just help me understand what I saw if you explained it to me."

"You could never understand." Hannah replied in a cold voice barely above a whisper.

The Docs statement annoyed Dean and the look he gave her told her just how much.

"Why don't you try me Doc? You never know I may just get it."

"Oh, you think that you could possibly understand what it was like to be a meat puppet." hissed Hannah "Something inside of you that walks like you and talks like you, but isn't you and you are made to watch helplessly as that thing exploits all of your fears and destroys everything that you care about for its own twisted entertainment."

Dean pulled into the parking lot of the Motel and turned to look at the Doc. Her pain was almost palpable, it cloyed suffocatingly in the car, but Dean tried to ignore it so he could talk to her rationally.

"Doc, I've seen the same thing happen to people I care about. People that I have had to kill." said Dean, the last admission filling him with a kind of guilt he hadn't felt previously.

"Your Father…Sam…even Meg." said Hannah, stunning Dean into silence with her knowledge of his past encounters "They were all victims, poor souls at the wrong place at the wrong time. Me, I bought this thing into my house and then I unleashed it." her voice was bitter and cold. "I am responsible for my family's death and I have to live with than knowledge until the day I die. Try understanding that."

With that Hannah slipped out of the Impala, the night seemed to swallow her as she fled across the car park to her room. Dean wanted to call after her, say something remotely consoling, but no words came to him. He decided that he would sleep on it and try and talk with her in the mourning.

He locked the Impala and let himself into the hotel room that he shared with Sam. Without even taking off his shoes, he lay down on the first bed he came across and let sleep take him.


The light glinted off the knife edge straight into Dean's eyes and he flinched away from the glare as the knife turned end over end until it embedded itself with a fleshy thud.

Dean opened his eyes, the image of the Doc killing her brother having been burned into them throughout his dream. He rolled over to look at the glowing numbers of the clock on the night stand. 5:12 am…..just perfect.

Dean felt dirty, his clothes feeling stiff and slightly scratchy against his skin and every body part hurt, particularly his chest. He pushed himself up gingerly, deciding that there would be no going back to sleep now and headed for the bathroom.

He took a long hot shower, examining the bruises on his chest and ribs under the harsh white florescent lights in the bathroom. The Doc may have saved his life, but she had beaten the shit out of him in the process. Feeling slightly better after his shower, Dean pulled on a t-shirt and wrapped a towel around his hips.

Sam's computer sat on the small table in their room and within minutes, Dean had it booted up and was surfing the net. Typing Hannah's name into the search window he was overwhelmed by the number of hits that were returned to him. Most of them were from English sites; it would seem that the death of her family had been major news over there.

Apparently the Riordan's had been members of the English social elite, the group that befriended aristocracy and royalty alike. The Riordan murders were highly scandalous and as a result the press had been prolific in their coverage of it.

He read through the articles, reading accounts that told of how a disgruntled servant in the Riordan household had murdered the family with a knife, then taking his own life by leaping out of the second story of the family home.

Dean read on where it spoke of how the only survivor of the Riordan Massacre was the youngest daughter, Hannah, who was in the house at the time, but was miraculously spared. Next to the text there were several photographs. The largest one showed the bodies being taken out of Hannah's family home. There were two smaller inlays, one showing a shot of Riordan family at some society event and another, which particularly struck Dean's attention.

The photo was of Hannah; it was blurred around the edges as if it had been caught on a telephoto lens. She stood with a blanket around her shoulders in her bloodied nightdress talking with a police man. Dean studied her face, her eyes were full of such utter devastation that there was no way this was the face of the demon who had committed this atrocity.

It was almost as if the demon had cut down her family, then had let Hannah face the music for it. Dean ran his finger over the photo on the screen, briefly trying to imagine what that must have been like. Despite what Hannah thought, he did understand. He had seen his mother taken, he was the reason his father was taken….he understood Hannah in a way he was sure no one else could. The only difference in how their lives had turned out was that Dean had Sam. The Doc had no one.

Dean continued to surf the articles, reading about Hannah's brother Michael. Apparently he had a very promising motor racing career in Europe before he was killed. He read an article where Michael and Hannah had teamed up for a charity rally. The photo showed them arm in arm on the podium, holding a winners wreath. Both were smiling and laughing and just looking at them, Dean could see how close they had been. His heart ached suddenly as he considered what it would be like if he lost Sam.

Dean looked down to the clock on the computer and realised he had been surfing the web for nearly two hours. Pulling on his jeans he knew he wouldn't have any peace of mind until he discussed this further with the Doc. She didn't seem to realise, that he didn't just see the events of that time, but he felt her emotions like they were his own. Even when he dreamed of it, he had the full impression of disgust, outrage and guilt and he understood the deep loneliness that seemed to live in her constantly.

Dean shrugged into his jacket, slipping the room key into his pocket. He knew that it was still early, but people who had been through as much as he and the Doc had in the last 24 hours didn't generally stand on ceremony.

He looked out into the car park his heart sinking almost immediately. Charlotte was not in the space outside the Docs motel room. In fact Charlotte was no where to be seen. The door to the Docs room was open and Dean jogged over, hoping that there was some other explanation than the one that he feared. But when he stuck his head in, he only saw a matronly woman stripping the sheets off the bed. The woman seemed slightly startled at Dean's sudden appearance in the door way, so he smiled his most disarming smile to try and put her at ease.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where the woman staying in this room is?"

The matronly woman looked Dean up and down suspiciously.

"She checked out earlier this morning." was her clipped reply

Again Dean smiled, trying to make himself look less threatening.

"Can you tell me when that might have been?" he said hoping that he wasn't pressing his luck.

"No" said the woman tersely "She used the after hours key return. I have no idea when she left."

Dean swore to himself as he left the housekeeping lady slightly bemused. He walked back to his room kicking agitatedly at loose stones in the car park. He hadn't wanted her to just disappear like this had never happened, he needed an explanation, and he needed to hear from her exactly what happened that night. He also needed to make her understand that he knew all too well what it was she was going through.

Dean calmed himself, centring his anger into more productive energy. He had reconciled himself with the fact that he was going to find her, but first he would go and get Sam and then they would track her down together.

He took his time packing up their gear and made sure that he had everything before checking out and heading off to the hospital in Winterset. Driving in the Impala by himself felt strange and terribly lonely. He had a pang of regret that he had been unable to speak with Hannah before she took off; he was suddenly imagining what it must be like for her, alone with Charlotte and the open road.